a collection of various matoran hard at work

[Resentful Knight Endolf]

greetings, gathered friends.  while i'm away from my parts collection and bricklink is... busy doing bricklink things, i've made the transition to digital building.  being able to hop on the computer and throw together a neat little dude has proven oddly therapeutic.  here is the accumulated result of several therapy sessions for your viewing pleasure.

each matoran in this project uses or reuses one of two body designs, which i dislike on principle, but which was necessary to keep them in scale with each other and with larger characters.  in order to help them stand out as much as possible, then, i set two main goals.  the first was to give each one a unique set of tools and accessories, and the second was to try emulating the delightfully haphazard color schemes of the villagers in MNOG2.  a third goal that grew from these was to design everything to be completely buildable in real life, so each part seen in these renders is available to buy in the color it's seen in.

without further delay, please enjoy- a collection of various matoran hard at work.

 

VARRO, the Dockworker

 

NOTES: varro was the first one of these guys created, before this project even became a project.  he ended up as a test dummy for various prop builds for a while- and thus helped me figure out all kinds of ways to attach props into the hands- before becoming his own character and getting some props of his own.  i 'm very pleased with his color distribution; the yellow komau is one of my favorite masks of all time, and i love how it and his other yellow bits pop against the red.

 

TARSUS, the Veteran

 

NOTES: tarsus owes his existence to a friend, who suggested a teacher character with dark red in the color scheme.  given the more militaristic bent of various fire villages we've seen, i bent the prompt a little and made tarsus a retired soldier turned strategic advisor.  his "gradient" color scheme and prosthetic arm were fun to design, but his wargaming board was not- it literally took me three hours to get something i liked.  its shape is based on a pixel-ized map of the coasts of ireland.

 

CLYMENE, the Jeweler

 

NOTES: ga-matoran tend to be a little one-note with their colors, which is a shame, because the ocean is a colorful place.  for clymene, i wanted to see what kinds of colors i could add to her design to help enhance her appearance as an ocean-themed character; the idea behind the final result is that her mask is made of coral and her "apron" is made of grass.  her hammer doesn't really scream "jeweler," but it was a fun piece i wanted to use on one of these guys; maybe she uses it to help her carve the jewels?

 

PSARAS, the Fisherman

 

NOTES: psaras came about after i watched a brilliant lego atlantis moc video on youtube, which inspired me to check out the various colors the fish piece was released in.  he just might be my favorite out of the whole lot; i love how goofy he looks with the fish hanging off him, and his fishing pole is one of those props that came together exactly as envisioned on the first attempt.  he's got another "gradient" color scheme, this time inspired by the colors of a crashing wave.

 

OKUNI, the Idol Singer

 

NOTES: okuni was one of my first real challenges in this project.  those 2-long thin technic liftarms come in a lot of nice colors, but not many that go too well with mata green.  i ended up choosing dark orange, to represent the wood of the trees in the various air and jungle villages.  this has the side effect of not making her look as flashy as an idol singer should, but since her mask can get a little pricey, we'll say that's where all her wardrobe budget is going.

 

MITSU, the Welder

 

NOTES: mitsu was the last of these guys to be designed, and the hardest one to actually design.  by this point, i had used all of the solid-color 2001 masks on the other matoran, and i really didn't want to use the kaukau, which looks really ugly when rendered (and in general), but i also really didn't want to reuse any masks.  it literally came down to a coin flip between the kakama and the miru.  his occupation was suggested by a different friend, and his red arms are meant to be protective gloves.

 

JULA, the Athlete

 

NOTES: jula is another one of those ideas that clicked into place from the start and didn't change much during the design process.  i don't work with "sand" colors too often, but the sand blue paired surprisingly well with the metru brown.  the layout of her colors was inspired by a weightlifting singlet, and the akaku was the only logical choice for a javelin thrower.  in hindsight, though, i probably could have done the actual javelin a little better; those knobs break the shaping of it pretty badly.

 

KUCHONGA, the Carver

 

NOTES: kuchonga's design was finalized somewhere in the middle of the project, but his occupation wasn't decided on until the very end.  a carver may be a stereotypical po-matoran job, but i still enjoyed designing his little hammer and chisel.  the little chunks of rock he's chopped off his sculpture were also pretty fun to arrange.  his colors are inspired by the colors of natural clay; his "apron" was originally dark red like the studs, but regular red helped his mask fit in a little better.

 

FONG, the Botanist

 

NOTES: fong is partly responsible for psaras- he was my first experiment with reusing the same accessory multiple times on the same character, and i loved the results here so much i wanted to do it again.  all the stems of his mushrooms are glow-in-the-dark, even the short ones.  the light gray matatu was chosen because it made him look like a shut-in who hasn't gotten any sunlight for a few... years.  at the time, i couldn't think of a more specialized prop for him, so i just gave him a lightstone torch to hunt more mushrooms with.

 

ZEIMOTO, the Trader

 

NOTES: zeimoto is another request from yet another friend, who wanted to see a trader character with purple in the color scheme.  since there aren't any purple masks besides the pakari, it's a little difficult to use it on a character without them looking like onepu.  the idea behind the yellow on zeimoto's shoulders is that it's a mechanical harness he can mount his crates onto to carry around, death stranding-style.  he doesn't have a psychic fetus for sale, though, just crystals and lightstones.

 

RAUD, the Priest

 

NOTES: raud was the second of these guys to be completed, and the official starting point of this project.  he kind of set the benchmark for how colorful i could get away with making these guys while still having them be recognizable as members of specific tribes.  (in my universe, the turaga are an order of matoran priests instead of a stage in their life cycle, but for those who demand slavish adherence to canon, maybe he's dressing for the job he wants?)  the colors of his body are based on the character toudo from MNOG2.

 

INGUNN, the Artist

 

NOTES: one final request from one final friend, who asked for an artist character with silver in the color scheme.  light gray is close enough to silver, right?  at various points, ingunn had a white hau and light aqua instead of light gray, before i finally settled on the more subdued colors and friendlier-looking mask.  her easel is the most complex prop i've designed for this project, and her painting is a partial copy of some pixel art i found of the 2001 turaga's masks.

 

thank you for taking the time to look at this humble little collection.  i had a lot of fun making these guys, and i hope you had a lot of fun reading about them.  comments and feedback are always welcome, so if you saw something you liked, please let me know!

until next time, be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.

[Sky - Toa Of Shadow]

I really like all of them. For them having a similar build to each other, the accessories and little details make them look all unique. Their body build look really nice on its own too. My favourites are probably Tarsus for the details and colours, Psaras also for colours, the coral and fish details, and also the really nice looking fishing rod. Plus, Fong being covered in mushrooms is a pretty fun detail. Overall a pretty nice and visually interesting group

[Master Inika]

These guys are beautiful. I can't decide which was better done, the builds or the backstories. When I saw "the Idol Singer" I really questioned if it was something Bionicle could pull off but the brick-built microphone won me over.

[Fritz_mocs]

These look great and have so much personality in them! Awesome job. 

 

[kawaii kitty]

can't believe i missed these! i really like the broom piece being used as a brush, and the mushroom guy.

[Master Inika]

I noticed a lot of Greek/Roman influence in some of the names. Varro was a Roman author, Tarsus is an ancient city, Clymene was another female water-themed mythological figure, and the Greek "ps-" sound is pretty uncommon to Bionicle. Was this intentional?

[Resentful Knight Endolf]

5 hours ago, Master Inika said:

I noticed a lot of Greek/Roman influence in some of the names. Varro was a Roman author, Tarsus is an ancient city, Clymene was another female water-themed mythological figure, and the Greek "ps-" sound is pretty uncommon to Bionicle. Was this intentional?

yes it was!  so glad you noticed!  i like using names and words from various real-world cultures and history when naming characters.  the fun part is finding ones that align with who the characters are as people; "psaras," for example, is the greek word for "fisherman," and francisco zeimoto was a portuguese trader during the age of exploration.  there are bits and bobs from all over the world in here.

[Torran]

Love the unique styles while maintaining a cohesion across all the Matoran. Clymene, Fong, and Raud are my favourites, and vary quite a bit between each. Smart work with the mushrooms on the Botanist and I appreciate the branching out with color palette for a Ga-Matoran. The orange reminds me of Gali Uniter of Water, so even there's some canon to it!

[Stroxx]

The first thing I did note that I would likely have most of these part from my old bonkle sets or look common enough to be ordered. So kudos for that I really appreciate that effort in these designs!

I also really like the backstories, Sparas and Clymene are my favs

[HarveySW]

Hello,

I was wondering if it would be possible to receive the basic build instructions for these Matoran. I am especially fond of your Taruga. The designs are incredible. 

[Resentful Knight Endolf]

On 5/2/2026 at 7:17 AM, HarveySW said:

Hello,

I was wondering if it would be possible to receive the basic build instructions for these Matoran. I am especially fond of your Taruga. The designs are incredible. 

i'm glad you enjoy them, but i don't really keep any instructions on file, or hand them out to random internet strangers.  the builds aren't anything overly complex; if you look carefully at the pictures, you could probably reverse-engineer them in five minutes by yourself.  sorry.